Descent: How Lalnable Hector Came To Be
by atomjenkins
Summary: Lalna, Honeydew and Xephos are out mining for resources when they are ambushed by hordes of monsters. Sealing themselves in a little rock chamber, they are horrified to discover that they don't have any supplies necessary for survival. The mounting tension and desperation drives one of them to a very dark place. Rated M for language, gore and graphic depiction of cannibalism.
1. A Promising Start

Lalna did not like feeling helpless. Granted, the feeling of everything being against you, and the uncomfortable twisting feeling you get inside you when you feel like there's nothing you can do is not pleasant for anyone to experience, but Lalna downright _hated _the sensation. That was why he had invested so much time in science – because that was what promised to keep him safe, and to keep him one step ahead of any danger he might encounter. Sitting in his lab, creating new machines and tinkering with the old ones, Lalna felt more powerful, more secure, and more prepared.

Xephos did not like the dark. Once again, very few of his friends would have ever claimed to_ enjoy_ being plunged into pitch black, but Xephos had a particular dislike for it, to the point of nyctophobia. Instinctively, whenever he ventured down into the mines, even with the comfort of his friends, he would line the walls with torches, just to ensure that there was always a warm, comforting glow present; a safe place, somewhere the monsters couldn't reach him. Once the torches ran out he would stubbornly remain where it was bright, while the others ventured further on into the darkness, scolding him but at the same time understanding his deeply-rooted fear, and respecting his wishes to hang back where he had deduced it to be comfortable.

And Honeydew – well, he was Honeydew. He probably didn't have the brainpower to contemplate any of the possible dangers associated with mining in the dark. While he didn't fear getting into situations which involved phobias of 'helplessness' or 'the dark'; he certainly – despite being the only one not having his mind clouded by fear – wouldn't be the one to think of an ingenious way out.

It was most unfortunate, then, that these three were stuck in a cold and cramped cave.

Surrounded by monsters.

With no swords or weapons.

With stone walls either side of them.

With no pickaxes to break through it.

With no torches to place on said-stone walls.

With no food or drink.

With the strengths and weaknesses of the three characters previously mentioned.

Most unfortunate indeed.


	2. Let There Be Light

Lalna let out a heavy sigh and slumped against the rock wall. Honeydew copied his actions, still panting, his hairy exposed chest rising and falling, fast and frantic. Lalna could barely make out the shapes of his friends in the darkness – only the faint cyan light from Xephos' eyes revealed the outlines of the three figures, and even then, whenever he blinked, the room was plunged into darkness once again – but the scientist could hear them clearly, breathing heavily, just loud enough to blot out the muffled moans of zombies through the stone wall.

"That…was…a _fuck-ton…_of mobs…" Honeydew panted.

Lalna nodded – though not a technical term, what Honeydew had said seemed an accurate description of the number of mobs that had chased them. "Must have accidentally broken into a dungeon or something." Lalna theorized, rooting through his pockets. He glanced up at Honeydew, concerned, when he came up empty. "You got a pickaxe with you?"

He saw the ghostly figure reach over his shoulder to reach the pickaxe that was usually slung across his bare back, but he shook his head, pulling his hand back thoughtfully. "Nah, it broke. Probably when breaking into aforementioned dungeon."

"You got another?"

"No. You?"

"No."

The two of them glanced at Xephos, who slid down the wall to sit with his legs pressed against his chest, his arms hugging them close. He shook his head as he felt the eyes of his two companions upon him – though he could barely see them in the dark void, the silence communicated well enough. Lalna sighed, scratching his head. "Okay, well…we could…make another one? We got plenty of resources on this little expedition."

"Yeah." Honeydew said, nodding as he began digging through his pack. "I've got a lot of iron…fuck, it's ore, though. Got a furnace on you?"

"No. Mine some stone and get one." Lalna said, pointing out the size of his labcoat pocket, which in itself showed how preposterous the idea was that he could somehow squeeze a furnace into it.

"No pickaxe, dumbass." Honeydew reminded him.

"Okay, well…wood?" Lalna suggested. "We could make a wooden pick…and make charcoal too."

Xephos nodded eagerly at this idea, clearly keen for some source of light. He looked at Honeydew expectantly. Lalna did the same. Honeydew suddenly became aware of this, feeling slightly cornered.

"Uh…well…sorry, chaps…but I don't think…I don't think I've actually _got_ any wood."

"No wood?!" Lalna snorted disbelievingly. "Are you kidding me?"

"Well…sorry…but it must have…slipped my mind…"

"_Slipped your mind_?" Lalna growled. "Are you having a laugh?"

Honeydew clenched his fists in the darkness. "Yeah, my sides are splitting! Do you think I did this on purpose?!"

"I just don't understand how you could have been stupid enough to forget the _one _thing we need to do _anything_!"

"Well, I'm_ sorry_, but you can't blame me for being caught up in other things!"

"What other things?"

"How about the stinking moon project we were collecting all this stuff for? I think that could make someone forget about something as boring and dumb as a few blocks of wood!"

"Well, _boring _and _dumb _as it is, we _need _wood to survive down here, idiot!"

"Look, if you like wood so much, why didn't you bring it yourself?"

Lalna scoffed and puffed himself up haughtily. "I'm chief _engineer_. I shouldn't have to worry about stuff like that – I expect you to do it!"

"Excuse me, Mr. Fancy-pants, but did you forget that I'm your boss? You can't talk to me like that!"

"Shut the fuck up, Honeydew! You might be my boss but you're not my fucking mother!" Lalna spat.

"That is _it_, Lalna! You're fired!"

"Good! See if I care! Remind me of a time I've even listened to a _single_ word that's come out of your mouth. Why, if I did that, it'd take another fucking fifty years before we landed on the moon!"

"Well, if you're so fucking _smart_, remind me why _you_ at least didn't have some wood on you when we came down here?"

"I could ask the same of you! You're supposed to be the fucking 'digging guru'!"

"Like I said – rockets, moon, techno-shit – kind of takes your mind off wood and shit, don't ya think?!"

"Since when have you been getting involved in _those_ aspects of the project?! You're just – how did we put it? The space _chimp?_" He snickered. "Then again, even a bloody monkey would have remembered the importance of wood!"

"Say that again, motherfucker." Honeydew challenged, fuming.

Lalna narrowed his eyes in rage. "I said; even…a…bloody…monkey…would…"

"Stop it!" Xephos suddenly cried, looking from one to the other in fright. "Stop fighting!"

Lalna and Honeydew looked at him, both panting heavily, their eyes still hard and cross. In truth, they'd both forgotten Xephos was there at all – but now they saw how awful it must have been for him to watch his best friends turning on each other so quickly and so explosively.

"Please…stop…" Xephos mumbled, looking at the ground, raking his fingers through his brown hair therapeutically. "…you're…really…scaring me…"

Honeydew and Lalna's expression softened, their breathing slowed. They looked at each other guiltily. Honeydew was the first to offer his hand in apology.

"Hey, sorry, Lalna."

Lalna grabbed his hand and shook it keenly. "Yeah, me too. Just…a bit, uh…_claustrophobic_ down here, y'know? I, uh, didn't mean any of that stuff I said."

"Nor me." Honeydew agreed, giving him a jovial thump on the back for good measure, nearly making the scientist topple to the ground. "I'm not going to fire you…yet."

Lalna chuckled nervously. Even if they had stopped their feuding – for now – tensions would surely run high again. Especially once everyone realized that through their bitter exchange of insults; nothing had been decided. There was no solution to this situation.

There was no way out.

But Lalna knew enough about survival to determine that he should try to keep morale up. Arguing and bickering like that never solved anything – in fact, it just made things worse. They had to work together.

Lalna shuffled over to Xephos and plonked himself down beside the Spaceman, who gave a small but appreciative smile in response. Honeydew sat down on the other side of Xephos, and for a quiet moment, the three of them just sat still, lost in their own thoughts, before Lalna cleared his throat to catch their attention.

"Okay, listen. I've read about what you're supposed to do in situations like this. You're supposed to just keep calm, keep your spirits up, and work out a plan. So, are we all calm?"

"Kinda, I guess." Honeydew shrugged.

"Not really." Xephos said. Lalna looked at him.

"What's up, Xeph?"

"I…I…I'm afraid. Of the dark." He said, in a small, embarrassed voice. Perhaps normally Honeydew or Lalna would have joked about it, but both of them could sense that now was not the time. Honeydew gave him a gentle pat on the back. Lalna thought hard. What did people say about conquering fears? They said talk about it, establish why it exists, and confront it. Lalna almost groaned internally – he was no psychiatrist, and hated dealing with emotions, whether they were his own or someone else's.

He shrugged in defeat. He really had nothing better to do at this point in time. At least he got to ask about something he had always been curious about.

"You know, Xeph, I've always wondered why you're scared of the dark. Does it come from a bad experience or something?"

"Yes. The stuff outside." Xephos said, warily looking at the wall, as though acknowledging the monsters' existence might make them burst through the stone wall separating them. "Monsters come in the dark. All the ghost stories and stuff I heard as a kid – it all happens at night, in the darkness; never in the day."

"Hmmm." Lalna frowned. That did sound plausible as a cause for this fear – but would something as simple as that; 'monsters coming out in the dark' – would that really be the cause for a fear so irrational and obsessive as Xephos'? Somehow, he doubted it. "Are you sure that's it? Nothing else could have caused it? Maybe it was something that happened before you arrived in Minecraftia?"

"I don't really…" Xephos began, but his eyes widened in fright as memories came flooding back, clearly memories of a frightening nature. "…wait…I remember…one time on the Enterprise, these…these…pirates or bandits or something, I don't know; just crazy people…they boarded us…all the lights went out…and I slipped and fell in the dark…and I was just laying there…I couldn't move or anything…I was just stuck there. Communications were down – I couldn't even talk to anyone. I must have laid there for ages – so when someone finally came in I thought I was saved, but it was a group of raiders…" he shuddered, and both Honeydew and Lalna could only have imagined what happened next, though neither of their ideas could have come close to describing it. Lalna patted Xephos on the shoulder sensitively. No wonder his nyctophobia was so deeply rooted, and no wonder Xephos had blotted those memories out of his mind.

"It's okay, Xeph. You don't have to say anymore." Honeydew said tenderly. Lalna was about to object, keen to probe for more information regarding the origin of this fear, but a stern look from Honeydew put him off. After all, the last thing they needed was another quarrel.

As interesting as it had been to gain some insight into Xephos' nyctophobia, it hadn't actually solved any of their problems. After a few moments of just listening fearfully to the muffled moans and snarls outside of their prison, Lalna sat up and crawled over to sit in front of Xephos and Honeydew, once again commanding their attention.

"Okay guys, we need to get through this. We can't let it all go to shit. We've just got to keep calm, and think straight. Right?"

"Right." Honeydew replied.

"Right." Xephos murmured.

"Cool. So, step one – find some source of light." Xephos gave him a thankful smile. "So, does anyone have any torches?"

"No." Honeydew said with some irritation, folding his arms across his hairy chest. "I already told you…"

"Just eliminating all the options." Lalna reminded him. "Any glowstone?"

Both of them shook their heads.

Lalna scratched his head. He knew about plenty of possible light sources, but all of them were obnoxious to build – and his knowledge of basic vanilla blocks wasn't the best. "What about…uh….um…oh, redstone lamps?"

Honeydew scoffed. "Look, Lalna, do you really expect us to…?"

"No, wait, I've got some redstone!" Xephos cried, pulling out handfuls of dust from his pocket. Honeydew snapped his fingers. "Well, that'll make a little bit of light, even if we can't make a lamp, right?"

Lalna sighed, shaking his head. "Yeah, but we need to activate it somehow. Have you got a lever or a button?"

"No…" Xephos said, the hope in his eyes dimming.

Lalna suddenly pointed at Honeydew. "But…but you had a silk-touch pick, right?"

Honeydew nodded gleefully. "Oh, yeah!" he pulled out a block of redstone ore and plonked it down in the middle of their group, all eyes darting to it excitedly, like real progress was being made (though obviously putting down a block of redstone ore was nothing in comparison to building a rocket, which was their actual goal – but in this situation, it mattered a great deal more). The block on its own provided a feeble reddish glow, but when Honeydew traced his fingers over it, the block updated and emitted a much warmer red glow. In comparison to something like glowstone or a torch, the light really was pitiful, but for two pairs of eyes that were starved of any form of light and for one pair that was borderline dependent on it; the soft, warm glow was a welcome sight, as were the blurry but still distinguishable outlines of the three figures. Normally Lalna would have condemned Honeydew's act of mining the redstone ore with a silk touch pickaxe – not only did it waste the one tool blessed with such a sought-after enchantment, but redstone was such an important (not to mention fairly rare/laborious to get) ingredient for the rocket that harvesting it in such an inefficient way was not only irritating but downright detrimental to the success of the project – but honestly, right now, he couldn't care less about any of that – in fact, he was almost grateful for Honeydew's complete incompetence, which was a thought that he didn't think he'd ever had before, and most likely wouldn't have again.

All of them were thankful for the light – even if it was dim, it was better than the pitch black they'd had before. The three of them huddled round it – it was also a fairly adequate heat source in the cool cavern – and Xephos laid his palms on the top of it, so it wouldn't plunge them into the darkness again. He smiled, his eyes brightened – some of the red light twinkled in his gleeful eyes, like a spark was caught inside – as he glanced from Honeydew to Lalna. "Thank you." He said, beaming nervously. "Thank you so much for this." Lalna grinned and Honeydew gave him a firmly supportive thump on the back, noticing that the Spaceman's shakes and shivers had evaporated.

"Anything for you, friend."


	3. Diggy Diggy (out of this wretched) Hole

"Well, now that's out of the way…" Lalna said, after a few blissfully peaceful moments of just sitting and basking in the dim light, their fears buried away. "…we should move on to step two."

"What would that be?" Xephos asked.

Lalna thought hard for a moment, frowning. Should they spend their energy on trying to find a way out, or save their limited oxygen supply as though they would be imprisoned here for a long time? The scientist was about to pitch this question to his colleagues before Honeydew piped up.

"Hey, this is good practice for when we're on the moon!" he exclaimed excitedly.

"It is?" Lalna asked, frowning.

"Sure it is!" Xephos agreed, nodding whole-heartedly. "Think about it – we'll have limited air on the moon, so when we go outside, especially when we're far away from the moonbase, we'll need to conserve our oxygen."

"Oh, I see." Lalna said. "We'll save air by doing non-energetic things – not to mention we'll pass the time faster."

"Like what?" Honeydew asked.

"Well, on the moon it would be things like walking instead of running, or breathing deeply in order to ensure full oxygen exchange." Xephos explained, though his scientific language was met by a blank stare from Honeydew, which Lalna chuckled at. "Down here, though, it would mean things like sitting down a lot, and spending most of our time sleeping and resting."

Honeydew lay down flat on the floor, curling up into a ball as he placed his helmet to one side. "Well, in that case, goodnight, chaps."

Xephos and Lalna both looked at him blankly. "Uh…I said _most_ of our time, not _all_ of our time, Honeydew." Xephos said.

Lalna helped the dwarf sit back up. "Yeah. We can still talk to each other – in fact that's a good idea. We need to do things that'll pass the time, and keep our spirits up, like talking, singing…"

"THERE'S A CREEPER, IN A CAVE, LA-LA-LA-LA-LAAAA–"

"_Quiet _singing, dumbass!" Lalna snapped at the dwarf. Xephos clamped a hand over his friend's mouth, and all three listened intently for a moment. There was shuffling outside, the groans of the undead, and the irritated hiss of a Creeper unable to reach its prey. The trio heard the mobs clawing and pounding at the walls for a few terrifyingly tense moments, before they resumed their rhythmic pacing up and down the mineshaft, determined to wait the trio out. Lalna let out a sigh of relief, and Honeydew wrestled Xephos' loosening grasp away from his mouth.

"Just trying to lighten the fucking mood, jeez." He grumbled.

"You nearly got us…" Lalna began, but a harsh glare from Xephos stopped him from finishing. Lalna closed his mouth and nodded, grateful for the spaceman's intervention. It wouldn't do to keep arguing with each other. The scientist shook his head. "Let's just see how bad the situation is. What have we got on us?"

Honeydew pulled out piles of ore after ore – copper, tin, iron, aluminium (or aluminum as he corrected his friends every single time), redstone dust and various other minerals that were normally invaluable, but in this situation were completely redundant. Lalna knew Xephos was a hoarder of useless items, and so had his fingers crossed that he had something, _anything_ – a half-broken wooden pickaxe that had been long forgotten about would have been most welcome at this point – but the spaceman too turned up nothing useful as he dug around in his inventory; cobblestone, obsidian, various jewels; all useless. Even Xephos grimaced as he pulled out his final items – a gleaming pile of diamonds. "22 diamonds…" he growled. "…like they mean fucking anything down here."

The situation looked bleak. No tools, no weapons, no armour – not even food or water. Lalna rooted through his pockets, producing nothing but red rock cobblestone mixed amongst the usual collection of minerals. How he wished they had some_ real_ baked beans. From his top pocket he pulled out a blunt but functional scalpel. Not at all suited for dealing with the horde of mobs outside, it would have been useful enough for cutting up their food into fairly sliced chunks if it ever got to the point where they needed to ration food. Not that it would ever reach that point now – they even lacked the basic but precious commodities of food or water.

"It doesn't look good, guys." Lalna said simply. The other two didn't respond, just stared silently at their pitiful pile of supplies. Honeydew clutched his bare stomach guiltily. This was a good indication of how hungry he was – in a word, very. He'd been the one doing the mining after all.

Xephos noticed too. "We need to get out of here." He said, standing up as though he intended to take action himself. He leant his hands against the back rock wall and pressed his ear against the smooth surface. Lightly, and in various places, he tapped his fingers on the rock, listening intently. Lalna theorized he was seeing if the rock was hollow or weakened in certain places. If they really were going to break out, it would make sense to do it on the thinnest possible part of the wall, to minimize effort. Even then, it would take a long time – if the wall was weaker in any spots at all.

Lalna sighed and brought his knees up to his chest, hugging them tightly. He would never admit this to his friends, of course; he was far too stubborn and proud – but right now, some part of him was very, very scared. Not of anything specific like Xephos' fear of the dark, more of something vague; just a sinking feeling of being lost and afraid – but it was a fear equally as intense as the spaceman's. It was the feeling of being helpless, alone, and being so certain he was going to die. Normally he prided himself on his scientific intellect and high intelligence, but down here it was working against him, abusing his cowardly nature that normally never came to light. His advanced mind simply wouldn't allow him to feel illogical emotions such as hope or optimism – it was only the details; the straight facts that mattered to him. _They _determined the success of something – and right now all the details spelt trouble for the trio. His stomach twisted and writhed uncomfortably, and suddenly he felt sick, and he felt the walls closing in around him, pressing against him. He felt like he was suffocating, choking, his windpipe growing smaller as the hopelessness of this situation closed in on him, preventing his normal breathing. The sound of Xephos tapping was drowned out by the sound of his heart thumping louder and louder, as his mind was racing with how they would never escape this place – they were stuck here, they were going to die, _he _was going to die…

"Lalna?" Honeydew asked, looking at him strangely. Lalna realized he was panting very heavily. Even Xephos had stopped what he was doing.

"Are you okay, friend?" the spaceman asked.

Lalna cleared his throat, momentarily caught, and sat up straight. "What? Yes, I'm fine." He caught his colleagues' concerned glances at each other. "Seriously, I'm alright. Nothing's the matter." He said, in an authoritative tone which Xephos and Honeydew were very familiar with. Xephos shrugged and returned to the wall. Honeydew frowned, but decided not to press any further with the matter. He knew how much Lalna hated appearing weak – in fact, more so to his friends than to his enemies – and down here, where they were all feeling scared underneath, it wouldn't do to start bringing up matters that were likely to cause arguments, especially with things so tense already. So he was silent, not even daring to hum a jolly tune, seeing how that had gone last time. Lalna stared at the floor, quite aware that even though his friends' eyes were not upon him, they were both 'staring' at him, thinking about that short display of fright. He resented both of them for it – but he resented himself much more for losing control of himself and showing it in the first place.

"Here!" Xephos suddenly said, in a victorious tone. He pulled away from the wall and defiantly pointed at a certain point on the wall. "_This_ is where we need to dig!" he said, as the other two crowded round to see what had got him so excited.

"Why here in particular?" Honeydew asked. Xephos grinned eagerly.

"It sounds hollower here. Like the stone is thinner at this part of the wall than any other part. That probably means there's something on the other side."

"Like a cave system or mineshaft." Lalna theorized. Xephos nodded keenly.

"This means we'll have to dig through as small amount of stone as possible. And if we _do _end up in a cave system, or even a ravine, we should be able to follow it back to the surface!"

"That sure beats digging through a bunch of rock to make a staircase up there." Honeydew agreed.

Lalna was deep in thought. "But if it's a tunnel we've not been in before, chances are it won't be lit up with torches. That means there'll be more mobs to deal with, and we still don't have weapons or armour."

He saw his friends consider his point, but they still shook their heads at him. "Then we'll deal with that as it comes." Xephos said firmly, folding his arms. "I'd rather take a chance on doing something than sitting in this dark hole waiting to die."

Lalna, despite his strictly structured thinking objecting to it, couldn't help but agree with Xephos' attitude. "There's still a problem, though." He said, looking at the wall doubtfully. "Even if it's not that much stone to mine through, we still need to get through it with just our bare fists."

"No problem." Honeydew said readily, pulling his gloves further up his arms impressively. "Dwarven fists are renowned for their stoniness. I was taught how to punch stuff with just my hands when I was just a lad."

"And clearly, Dwarf brains are renowned for their mushiness." Lalna scoffed. "You can't punch through rock with just your hands! Tell him, Xeph!"

"You know, Lalna, I had no idea you cared so much." Honeydew said, only half-joking, as he tapped and listened to the wall for himself.

"Uh…" Xephos struggled to remain neutral, caught between his two strong-willed friends. "…well…Honeydew, if you think you can do it, go for it…but even if this part of the wall is weaker than the rest…well, it's still pretty thick…I mean…you might hurt yourself..."

Honeydew grinned. Clearly the many negativities stacked against him did not dampen his spirits. Lalna wished _he_ could be that naive.

"Gentlemen, stand aside." The Dwarf said, gently pushing on Lalna and Xephos' chests so that they parted and stood aside for him to get a clear shot at the daunting stone wall - well, daunting for anyone else other than Honeydew.

"This is a job for a Dwarf."


End file.
